English Renaissance
The English Renaissance is an intriguing topic for a scholarly research paper. The amount of information a student can write on the English Renaissance is overwhelming. So it is important to remember that the English Renaissance was part of the broader European transition from Medievalism into the beginning of the modern era. It involved a wide-ranging, interrelated, and often traumatic series of changes in the following areas:
It was the age of such legendary figures as:
- Thomas More (1478–1535)
- Francis Drake (1540-1596)
- Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
- William Shakespeare (?–1616)
- Walter Raleigh (c.1552-1618)
- Francis Bacon (1561–1626).
English Renaissance and the Church
Historians generally date the English Renaissance from the late fifteenth century to the early seventeenth century. Though it began decades after the Italian Renaissance, its implications for the world would be no less dramatic. Among other things, the Renaissance was shaped by a shift in religious dominance from Roman Catholicism to the Church of England. The Renaissance was also fueled by England’s emergence as a maritime trading power and the beginnings of capitalism as capital holding companies were established to support costly and risky ventures to remote trading sites. And, although England was something of a latecomer to the Age of Discovery, the Renaissance witnessed the first English explorations of the Americas and an increased British presence in other corners of the world. These and other wondrous developments inspired poets, playwrights, philosophers, visual artists, intellectuals, scientists, actors, and musicians to transport England’s literature, arts, sciences, and scholarship to unprecedented planes.